Viettel, VinaPhone dial in on e-payment service

Several local mobile service providers, including Viettel and
VinaPhone, are now switching to the e-payment segment in the context
that their revenues from basic mobile services such as call, text and
value added services have declined. Report by the Saigon Times Daily.

Nguyen Duc Hung, in charge of sales and marketing of
the value added service centre of VinaPhone, said basic services like
phone and text were already saturated and that charges of these services
were falling due to the fierce competition from free over-the-top (OTT)
services.

Because of this, telecom enterprises
now are competing with one another in terms of the value-added service
and payment service, Hung said.

“Basic and value
added services have been tapped thoroughly by telecom companies while
only payment is the final segment that is not yet utilised at present.
This is the segment bringing huge revenue.”

Viettel
and VinaPhone are two mobile service operators joining the e-payment
sector actively while MobiFone is also making a plan to enter this area.

In particular, Viettel has launched the BankPlus
service allowing customers to make payments for water and electricity
bills, air ticket purchases and money transfers via mobile phones. The
service now is connected among 16 local banks such as Vietcombank,
Vietinbank, BIDV and Sacombank, with users set to pay 11,000 VND (0.55
USD) per month to maintain the service.

Account
transfers within the same bank costs a minimum 3,000 VND for one
transaction while account transfers among different banks is charged
10,000 VND a time and the transaction check fee is set at 500 VND.
However, certain banks offer free money transfers internally and only
charge monthly service maintenance fees.

Pham Trung
Kien, director of the e-commerce center of Viettel, informed that the
BankPlus service of his firm had already connected 16 banks and
attracted 2.4 million Viettel subscribers. Notably, over 1.5 million
subscribers perform monthly transactions worth some 5 million VND a
month each, Kien remarked.

In the meantime,
VinaPhone with the e-purse model Momo supports customers via payments
for air tickets and game card purchases and other digital contents. At
the same time, customers are also able to transfer money through the
e-purse model with a maximum amount of 5 million VND a day. The service
now is being used by 700,000 VinaPhone subscribers.

Besides the basic payment, Viettel and VinaPhone said they were looking
to connect with e-commerce websites as intermediate payment tools.
According to Hung, VinaPhone is talking with several lenders over the
payment channel connection besides cooperating with e-commerce websites
to integrate the e-purse Momo as an online payment portal.

Similarly, Viettel is working with local e-commerce websites to launch
its payment service in the e-commerce industry next year.-VNA